In an SDN (Software Defined Network) environment, interface protocol OPENFLOW specifications define a technology in which a control plane is separated from a forwarding plane. In this mode, an OPENFLOW switch needs to support various tunnel types. The tunnel types include Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN), Virtual extensible Local Area Network (VXLAN), Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE), and the like.
At present, in a hybrid networking environment of an OPENFLOW switch and a conventional switch, when a tunnel type supported by a first-hop switch is different from a tunnel type supported by a next-hop switch, tunnel switching and a mapping mechanism need to be used to implement forwarding of a data packet from the first-hop switch to the next-hop switch.
However, when a data packet is forwarded using the OPENFLOW switch and the conventional switch, and when neighbor switches support different tunnel types, the tunnel switching and the mapping mechanism need to be introduced. In addition, a gateway or a bridge needs to be introduced into a network, which leads to relatively high data packet forwarding complexity.